The A’s third baseman reached another milestone Tuesday in his recovery from shoulder surgery by taking part in three rounds of live batting practice. It was the first time he participated in a session this spring.

“It’s just going to be about holding him back,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He’s going to want to speed it up, but there’s no reason to. It looked like midseason form watching him take BP today.”

The team has not announced a timetable for Chapman’s debut with the A’s set to open the Cactus League on Thursday against the Seattle Mariners at Hohokam Stadium. But the Gold Glove infielder is cautiously optimistic he could begin playing in games as soon as the end of next week.

Chapman will advance to full batting practice and hitting off the machine during workouts Wednesday and then take a scheduled day off Thursday. That along with diving for balls at third base are the final evaluations needed before determining when Chapman can play.

“I think that’s going be the hardest thing for me, diving for a ground ball and then pushing myself up, because that’s where I use my shoulder the most,” Chapman said. “I think that would be the last thing I have to get cleared to get into a game situation.”

Though he’s not all the way back quite yet, the smooth progression is a feeling of relief for Chapman. He no longer wakes up with soreness in his left shoulder as he did in the first few months after the December surgery.

“When I first got surgery it would be really achy in the mornings and hard for me to get it going,” he said. “Now I don’t really need to do much to get it going, it just feels like it’s ready.”

Martin Gallegos is a multimedia beat reporter covering the Oakland Athletics. A native of San Jose, he frequently attended ballgames at both AT&T Park and the Oakland Coliseum as a kid. Prior to covering the A's, he covered the Earthquakes, San Jose State football, and high school sports around the Bay Area. A self-proclaimed "Burrito Connoisseur," Martin is constantly on the search for the best burrito in each Major League city.

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